ZZQ Smokehouse - Eagan, MN

Staying out near the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport the last couple of times that I've gone to the Twin Cities, I was looking for a sit-down barbecue place one evening last fall. I did an on-line search and found a place in nearby Eagan that sounded interesting to me - ZZQ Smokehouse. I took off toward Eagan to find the place.

Zak Zeug - the ZZ in the name of the place - grew up in a household where both parents worked full time and he was usually left to fend for himself when he was hungry. He hated having to make his own food and he had absolutely no dream of working in a kitchen when he got older.

However, as he grew into a young man, Zak started to experiment with barbecuing ribs. The first few times he tried to make good ribs, they turned out not too great. He was upset that he had spent all that time and effort to make ribs, but they weren't that good. That's when he decided he'd study up on the art of making barbecue.

Zeug went out and bought a smoker and he experimented with different types of meat - ribs, pork shoulder, brisket, and chicken, primarily. He eventually became pretty good at smoking meats and cooking foods. Suddenly, he found his calling - he actually DID like working in a kitchen. And his dream became owning his own barbecue place. The only problem was that he had absolutely no professional kitchen or restaurant experience. He knew that he'd have to learn how to walk before he ran with his barbecue.

In 2007, Zeug bought a concession trailer and he outfitted it for his barbecue offerings. He didn't have the overhead of a regular restaurant while he was learning about the process of working in a kitchen, the costs involved, planning a menu - all the things that are needed to survive in the restaurant business. The mobility of the trailer allowed him to be able to go to fairs and events in the area where he garnered a following for his barbecue. By 2015, he decided it was time to take the plunge into a brick-and-mortar building and he found a place in south suburban Eagan that was attached to a convenience store/gas station at the corner of Yankee Doodle Road and Coachman Road. (see map) Zeug opened ZZQ Smokehouse in December of 2015.

I had put in the address in my GPS and it took me right to the corner of Coachman and Yankee Doodle. The only problem was the it was sort of hidden and I drove around buildings on both sides of Coachman looking for it. I finally found it on the far side of the convenience store - I couldn't see it as I was coming from the west on Yankee Doodle, but it was easy to see if you were coming from the east.

Inside ZZQ, I found a pretty nondescript place with an L-shaped dining room. There were tables and chairs up front, but along the wall in the back there were some old-style booths that looked like they came out of a 1984 Hardee's. There were architectural drawings of smokehouses and smokers on wall next to the booths.

The menu is located on boards on the side wall and behind the counter. You order at the counter at ZZQ and they bring the food out to your table. They had the staple barbecue fare - beef brisket, pulled pork, pork spare ribs, and chicken to choose from. The brisket, pulled pork and pulled chicken were all available in sandwiches, as well. They did have beer available at ZZQ, many of which were beers from local craft breweries. I got a Heart of Glass, a blonde ale from the nearby Bald Man Brewing Company.

I went with a combo platter - brisket and ribs. I got two sides with the combo plate - baked beans that turned out to be pretty good, and fries that were basically a throwaway. After I sat, I saw that the guy behind the counter preparing my meal had pulled out aluminum foil-wrapped meat from the refrigerated case behind the counter and heated the meat up on a grill. I know some places will do that with their barbecue, but I'm not certain if I like that or not.

They also had a sauce bar at ZZQ Smokehouse that offered eight different types of sauces. They had sauces such as a garlic sauce, a Carolina-vinegar sauce, a Buffalo-style sauce, and a mustard dill sauce. I took four sauces to the table with me - the hot (which wasn't all that hot, but had a noticeable bite to the taste), the spicy (which was was vinegar-based and nowhere as spicy as the hot), the smokey (sweet and not much of a smoke taste), and the sweet (that was pretty syrupy in consistency).

The ribs were meaty, lean and very tender. The only problem was that even with a rub on the outside of them, they weren't very flavorful. The barbecue sauce certainly helped, but on their own they needed something to give them a little more excitement in taste.

The brisket was all over the place. There was a lot of brisket slices on the platter, and some pieces were tender. But other slices were tough, others were fatty. And there was a distinct petroleum taste to the brisket that I noticed. I've smoked enough meats, had enough barbecue in my day, and have judged a number of amateur rib contests over the years to recognize the fact that if the meat has a slightly petroleum taste, it's probably been in a smoker with too much smoke. Frankly, the slight petroleum taste detracted from the overall flavor in the brisket.

The one good thing were the baked beans. I usually like to season up baked beans that I have at barbecue restaurants with some of the spicy barbecue sauce. But the baked beans at ZZQ Smokehouse didn't need any help. They were sweet with a bit of a spicy bite to them.

I hate to say it, but I was disappointed in the barbecue at ZZQ Smokehouse. I really wanted to like it, but I found the ribs to not have that good of flavor even though they were meaty, tender and lean. And the brisket slices I was served were alternately tender, tough or fatty. And the brisket had the taste that they had too much smoke during the cooking process. The different sauces - 8 of them - were a nice touch, but I can't say that any of the ones I tried really zinged my taste buds. But the baked beans were delicious and they had a very good selection of local craft beers to choose from. I'm hoping that it was an off-night for ZZQ Smokehouse because I really like to see places like this succeed.